Hi Russ! The mountains say Hi. Nothing changed, someold same old.

You've opened shop, branded your small business, launched your website, and ordered your paper systems -- now what? Should you advertise? Where? Hold on tight, because you're probably not prepared for this answer: hands down, the single best thing you can do to advertise your small business is to wrap your car with a full-body car wrap. That's right a wrap. Not a decal, not a magnet. Those efforts are half-hearted, and like most half-hearted things only get luke-warm results. If you're going to do it, then get serious and really do it. Wrap it. The whole thing.

For most small businesses, car wraps are more effective (better results per dollar spent) than any other form of advertising. Really. Remember, traditional advertising is paid by insertion. It doesn't matter where you insert: newspaper, television, radio -- you'll need to run literally hundreds of ads in the right place at the right time to reach your target audience. Of course, each insertion costs you money. Stop running your ads, and people stop seeing/hearing them. A wrapped car is a moving billboard. But whereas a billboard is stuck in one place, a wrap is constantly moving as you go about your daily business, increasing brand awareness and finding fresh viewers all the time. For small businesses, the target is audience is generally the local one. Drive around your home town, and your target audience sees you over and over and over again, and yet you only pay for it once.

Consider this: An Arbitron, Inc., study shows that more than 95% of Americans travel by car each week, creating a mass audience for your advertising. Advertising your business with a wrap is simple and wildly effective, considering that one wrap can generate between 30,000 and 70,000 impressions each day. Really, it depends on how much you drive and where you go. On the low end, that's 10.9 million impressions in a 12-month period! A clever wrap gets noticed, and getting noticed is the key to growing your business

Wraps are ideal for advertising your business. Everywhere you go, it gets seen. Visit a client, get noticed by thousands. Go to the grocery store, get noticed by thousands. Park it in front of your place, and it's a sign. Pay for it once and don't worry about it again. Needs no particular care. Never needs waxing. It's 100% tax deductible as a business expense, and best yet: It's not paint - so it's not permanent. When you're ready for it to be gone, just peel it off. Won't fade or degrade for over 5 years. Guaranteed. And it will NOT hurt your paint. In fact, it protects your paint from UV light! Comes with a 5 year manufacturers warranty. More on wraps here.

Here's a horrible pattern we've been observing over the years: in good times, small business feels confident enough to expand their marketing efforts, but when the market slows, the first budget to be cut is the marketing budget. How counter-intuitive is that? That's like watering your grass when it's raining, but when drought hits, turning off the spigot. Now more than ever you need to step up the marketing of you small business.

We call it the "death spiral." When sales begin to slow, rather than step up their marketing to compensate, small businesses pull back. The more they pull back, the slower their sales. So they pull back some more. Don't let your small business fall in to the trap. Remember: nothing happens in business -- any business -- until something get's sold. But how can you sell something if people don't know what you are doing? That's marketing: letting your potential customers know who you are, what you're doing, and that you have something to sell. In a down economy, you need to do that more than ever.

Keep in mind that marketing is a campaign. Anything you can do to get your message out is a part of marketing. So often, we think of marketing as advertising, when in fact, advertising is just a tool of marketing. Perhaps advertising isn't a good tool for you at the moment. So focus on what is. Perhaps an e-newsletter campaign would be a better fit for you. Regardless of the tool you use, step it up, don't pull it back! Be crafty. Get clever. A down-turn isn't like a thunderstorm that you hunker down and ride out. It won't be over by morning. It's more like a winter, and not only to we need to live through it, we need to thrive in it. And we can. Let's not shrink in front of the challenge: let's rise to it.

Congratulations to Georgetown, Texas –our home town– for being ranked by Fortune Small Business magazine as 2nd out of a field of 100 best cities in the United States in which to live and launch a small business. For all of you who've always wondered "why on Earth" we chose to dig roots here, "of all places," I finally get to say out loud what I've been mouthing silently all these years: I TOLD YOU SO!

So now it shouldn't be any wonder at all what has motivated us to launch a small business marketing product in this, the (second) best place in the free world to live in, and launch a small business. For more information about this enlightened article, read more here.

Well, it's been years in the works, but on Monday, March 31, 2008, the Express line of small business marketing products will be uncapped and released into the world. Thanks so much to all our partners: the folks at Google, Constant Contact, Go Daddy and Superwraps -- you all are definitely the dream team! Thanks to all our vendors and friends who make us look so good, and thanks to our ever-patient development team (sorry for the nervous twitches and hair loss). A very, very special thanks to all our Guinea pigs (you know who you are!). Thanks for letting us experiment on you! To all of you who helped bring us to this moment: a deep, warm and heartfelt thanks.

And so March 31 is showtime! Come on, Small Business! Let's get America back in black.